Observing German(s)…

The cops knuckled under and came through with the brew but it was terribly warm today, as was the beer, and the confused criminal let the woman go before fully realizing what hit him, but clearly didn’t really care by then.

Some days, if it wasn’t for dumb crime, the Germans wouldn’t have any crime at all.

Hände hoch oder es flenst!

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White asparagus being something of a national obsession on Germany for some weird reason, and knowing perfectly well that Bush’s father couldn’t stand broccoli, the sly Machiavellian Brunhilde thus put (some say nailed) the parting American President firmly on the spot.

Although Vladimir Putin’s attempt on his life during the G8 summit held here last year at this time was still clearly on his mind, the somewhat pale and shaken leader of the free world nevertheless consented to the Chancellor’s challenge and ate a whole plateful of the stuff without spewing once.

Secret service agents equipped with a presidential stomach pump then immediately dragged away from the table and had him whisked away to Italy where the next culinary adventure is most surely to be waiting.

“The German asparagus are fabulous.”

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As one professionally concerned German union has pointed out time and time again in its muckraking not-quite-a-best-seller-yet Schwarz-Buch Lidl Europa (The Black Book on Lidl in Europe), Lidl’s staff, some 200,000 strong, have put together a shockingly long list of shocking complaints about shocking work conditions so hard, unfair, demeaning and, uh, shocking, that most American workers would not even notice them.

It is unclear at this time just when this next German invasion will take place, but the odds are good that this one might acutally work for once and we, as in you, will soon be subjected to, enjoy and become hooked on Lidl’s daily bargain-basement prices and unfriendly overworked American staff, all of this turning you of course into a mindless, willing slave of Kapital as if you weren’t that already, already.

“Diese Woche: Schöne Bad-Ideen!“

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PS: Thanks for the ALDI link, Indeterminacy. Oh man. It’s all over now.

And here in Berlin people closely examine their potatoes before cooking and eating them too, it seems (they’re less picky about the beer, though – think Schultheiss). And it’s a good thing they do, I’d say, otherwise this one lady here would have missed the latest sign from heaven. And she wasn’t even drinking any Schultheiss when it happened. She may have had a few afterwards, though.

Not that Berliners are particularly religious or anything, because they aren’t (and the few that are aren’t generally Catholic, which makes this even less fun). Not that they understand the gravity of their spiritual situation now. Nor have they ever, for that matter. Not that they will ever see that it’s time to wake up and see the light and smell the coffee and straighten up their sinful and often third-rate act, at least when it comes to brewing beer.

It’s none of my business, after all. I could care less. I just live here. I’m just saying.

Talk to the potato. Talk to the hand.

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No tips necessary, either. And that’s probably why this place is so popular at the moment. Just think Jetsens only more non-cartoon-like. You place your order per touch screen and then your food slides down these spiral and futuristic metallic tracks directly to your table. And for a small additional fee I bet you can probably even have this stuff pre-chewed for you.

Talk about science marching on. In the land of ideas, I mean. That one marched right past us up here in Berlin, though, thank goodness. Although I can’t imagine that the Hauptstadt (capital) will remain verschont (spared) for very much longer.

They are everywhere, you know, these machines. I hear them talking sometimes, late at night. And sometimes in the subway, too (you know; “Zurück bleiben”, stuff like that). You know, those evil telepathic machine voices everywhere and all the time. And don’t pretend like you don’t hear them because I know you do. But that’s another story. I think.

What’s that you say HAL? “I’ll be back?”

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Over 400 of the 1200 McDonald’s restaurants in Germany are already equipped with these Starbucks killing devices and the number is expected to rise to 500 within the coming months. I’m not a big fan of the McDonald’s coffee program (although their coffee ain’t half bad) because, well, I’m old-fashioned or something and feel a bit alienated because I’m just not sure anymore if I’ll be laughed at when trying to order a cheeseburger there.

But, then again, on the other hand, maybe a little more coffee and a little less McBurger action would do me, and the Germans, some good. The average German man currently has a stomach circumference of 96.97 centimeters which sounds impressive because it is but we don’t even want to know what the American man’s stomach is doing right now and the Germans will never catch up to us in that Gebiet (area or discipline) anyway so why the hell are they even trying? The pitiful fools.

Just mark my words. You, too, will one day be telling people not particularly interested in listening to what you have to say how you remember when McDonald’s used to be a place that just sold hamburgers. And then you can tell them, as they walk away shaking their heads at the nonsense they just had to endure, that whenever fast food worlds collide, always get your order to go and drive-through as fast as you possibly can. You know, because you where there.

Do you want cheese with your frappe?

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Recently having ordered a “rich man’s dish” of lobster at a Strasbourg restaurant, the Stalinist Left Party sweetheart apparently didn’t think to send it back for some pale soup and stale bread in time and was caught on camera betraying her party, her past, and her lofty political ideals, ideals which clearly leave no room for capitalist stalk-eyed decapod crustaceans like that. Some say she even ordered Coke with her L Word, too.

And this at a time when her party generates the few votes it gets by selling what it packages as being the growing inequality between rich and poor in Germany. How shocking.

And more shocking still, Wagenknecht is believed to have then launched an unauthorized communist plot of her own to have the not-yet-infamous L Word photos destroyed before they could be published. Like I said; like how more shocking still.

By the way, they call lobster Hummer over here and I, for one, would not be the slightest bit surprised if the next photographer catches her driving a real Hummer down Unter den Linden before all too long (red-flagged, of course), know what I’m sayin’?

Klassenfeinde haben wir schon. Mit Klasse, meine ich.

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